


Consanguinity

by kitlee625



Series: Consanguinity [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-28 23:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitlee625/pseuds/kitlee625
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a cost to everything, and a Lannister always pays his debts. They just always assumed that it would be something they could afford.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consanguinity

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. They belong to George RR Martin.

At first Cersei is not sure that the word the young doctor has said is even English. Glancing at her husband, she sees Ned’s brow furrowed with confusion.

“Excuse me? What did you say?” he asks.

The doctor, who looks barely old enough to have graduated college let alone medical school, turns pink in the ears. “Consanguinity,” he repeats.

Ned doesn’t mince words. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Oh, um, cystic fibrosis is an autosomal recessive disease, so affected individuals must inherit two copies of the mutation. This is more common in patients whose parents are genetically similar.”

Ned stares at the doctor as he puzzles out what he has just said. “Are you asking if my wife and I are related?”

The doctor stammers something about it being a routine question. Ned is outraged that the doctor is asking such a thing. What kind of people does he think they are? he asks. Neither one notices that Cersei has grown very pale.

*****

Ned has gone home to take care of Brandon and Myrcella when Jaime comes by. He is carrying a bag from FAO Schwartz and beaming.

“Is the husband gone?” he asks.

Cersei nods.

His smile is a little too bright, and when he leans in to kiss her she can smell the whiskey on his breath.

“You’re drunk,” she says.

“I’m not drunk. Just had a drink or two to celebrate your son’s birth.” He glances at the closed door behind him to make sure that they’re alone. “Our son’s birth.” He enjoys the taste of those words more than he had the Scotch. “I brought him a present.” He holds out the bag, but she doesn’t reach for it.

“He’s sick.”

The smile fades from his face. He looks at where Tommen is sleeping peacefully in his mother’s arms. “What happened?”

“The doctor came in this afternoon and told us. He has cystic fibrosis.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s genetic. Cousin Lucion had it.”

Jaime only has vague memories of the cousin Cersei mentions, a pale sickly boy who was never allowed to play at Thanksgiving and died when he was only fifteen. “Is he going to be okay?”

“No Jaime! Were you listening? He’s sick. He’ll be sick his whole life.”

“But there must be medicine he can take.”

“He’ll have to take medicine, a lot of it, but it might not be enough.” Her mouth quivers, and she bites her lip to keep from crying.

Jaime moves to stand beside her and strokes her hair. “It’ll be alright. We’ll get him the best doctors in the world. He’ll be fine.”

She pulls away. “Don’t be naive, Jaime. This is the price for our sins, only it’s all on little Tommen.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This disease. It’s genetic. We gave it to him. The doctor said it’s more common in people whose parents are related.”

“Did he tell Ned this?”

“Yes, Ned was in the room as well.”

“And? What did he say?”

“What do you think he said? He got very insulted that the doctor would think that he and I were cousins or something. It never crossed his mind that you and I could … he doesn’t think like that.” She sees the worry melt from Jaime’s face, and feels a burst of annoyance - whether at Ned for being blind to the truth, or Jaime for caring more now about their secret than their son, or herself she can’t say.

“Can I hold him?” Jaime asks.

Cersei instinctively holds him tighter to her chest. “He’s sleeping.”

“Come on, just for a minute. Please.”

She sighs. “Just for a minute.”

He takes the bundle into his arms. He’s impossibly small and light, with wispy golden curls. When he feels himself being transferred from one set of arms to another, he opens his eyes, which are as emerald green as the ones staring down at him. He looks a lot like his sister Myrcella did when she was born, both of them carbon copies of Jaime and Cersei as infants. Jaime wants to protest that Tommen can’t be sick - he looks too perfect. But in his heart he senses that she’s right. There is a cost to everything, and a Lannister always pays his debts. He just always assumed that it would be something he could afford. 

*****

In the subsequent weeks they meet with a genetic counselor who advises that everyone in their family have genetic testing to see if any one else is a carrier. The testing will be more costly than normal, the doctor explains, because they have to use a special extended panel because Tommen has inherited a rare mutation. If former biology major Lyanna Stark recognizes the significance of a child inheriting two copies of a gene present in less than 1/100,000 people she does not comment.

Ned’s sister Lyanna and brother Brandon test negative. Cersei’s brother Tyrion is also negative, though her brother Jaime and father Tywin are carriers. Of their children, Brandon is not a carrier but Myrcella is. 

The doctor says there is no need to test Cersei and Ned.

*****

“It broke.” 

Cersei purses her lips. “I thought so. I could feel you come.” She is sitting up in their bed, knees to her chest. 

Ned Stark is not a small man but he looks small now standing naked beside the trash can with the broken condom in his hand. “What do you want to do?” he finally asks.

“Do? What can we do?”

“I don’t know. Is there something you can take?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t think it works that way.”

He closes his eyes and rubs his temples. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, “I should have just gotten a vasectomy when the doctor told you you couldn’t go on the pill. I just always thought that we might have another child someday ... with some help from the doctors.”

A knife twists in her heart. She wants to reach out and reassure him that even if she does get pregnant from their night together that their child will be perfectly healthy. But she can’t. She doesn’t want to know what his response would be if he knew the truth about two of their children.

“Come to bed. There’s no use worrying about it tonight.”

*****

She is nine days late on her period before she buys a home pregnancy test. She waits another day until Ned takes Brandon and Myrcella to the park before taking it. She is not at all surprised when the pink plus sign appears.

Ned spends her pregnancy agonizing over whether their fourth child will be sick as well. He insists that they have their child genetically tested in utero. Cersei refuses.

“What good is it going to do to know now?” she asks. “The test has risks too. I don’t want a giant needle poking into me and the baby.”

Ned looks disdainfully at her. “I can’t believe you’d let your fear of needles come before our child’s health.”

She grits her teeth. “I am not afraid. Why do we need to know ahead of time anyway?” She crosses her arms protectively over her still-flat belly. “I am not having an abortion.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Ned says, but before he can say more the sound of violent coughing erupts from the baby monitor in their room. Without a word they both rush to Tommen’s room.

Tommen is sitting up in his little bed coughing violently. His blond curls are stuck to his head, and his face is turning purple. In one hand he is clutching the stuffed lion his uncle Jaime bought him when he was born. 

Cersei picks him up and soothes him. Ned hands her the suction bulb and she tries to suck the thick mucus out of his nose and mouth. A lot comes out, and he begins to breath better. His color improves, and he sticks one of the lion’s paws in his mouth to suck.

“That thing is filthy. We should get rid of it,” Ned says.

Cersei protests, “He loves it. His uncle Jaime gave it to him.”

“It’s full of germs.”

“The maid can wash it.” 

Ned lets her win the argument. He rubs Tommen’s back, and they stand there in silence until he drifts back to sleep, breathing peacefully once more. They are both thinking of their poor sick little boy and what it would be like to have another sick child. Only Cersei knows that this isn’t a possibility this time. She looks at the worry etched on her face and wishes that she could give him that same reassurance. She weighs the cost of keeping her secret - Tommen’s illness, the guilt of lying to Ned, her marriage to Ned in the first place - and decides that she can afford one more thing.

“Fine,” she says, “I’ll have the test.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've had the idea of a modern Game of Thrones AU for a while, but after reading some amazing Ned/Cersei fics, namely The Joinery by arbitrarily and On Troubled Waters by trulyunruly, I was inspired to change canon a bit. This is my attempt to give these characters a somewhat happy ending in the modern day.
> 
> Also, as my wonderful beta reader Sarahastro pointed out, there is such a thing as Plan B, but this story takes place before that was available (so that any subsequent fics with the children now teenagers would be in the modern day).


End file.
